Page 7 of Ride the Wave

‘I do say so.’

‘All right. Both of us are fine, then.’

‘Exactly. We’remorethan fine,’ I insist.

‘Yes, we are. We both need to make sure we – what was it?’ She looks pensive, pretending to search for the right expression. ‘Grab life by the balls.’

My jaw drops open.

‘What? You think I can’t be crass too sometimes?’ She shrugs, leaving the room before calling over her shoulder as she heads down the stairs, ‘One thing you can count on, Iris, is that people will always surprise you.’

3

Iowe Naomi BIG time.

She called me Saturday night to say that she’d found me an ocean-view apartment in a building owned by one of her company’s big clients in Portugal that was free for me to use – if I might consider reviewing it for the travel section ofStudio.

When I arrive there on Monday and open the front door, my jaw drops. I have to double- check I’m in the right place and then phone her immediately.

‘Naomi,’ I gasp when she picks up, ‘this place is beautiful! Thank you,thank you!’

‘No problem. It wasn’t that hard to find you somewhere considering it’s March.’

‘Oh my God,’ I continue, gliding across the cold stone floor of the spacious lounge and opening the doors out onto the balcony. I gaze out at the stretch of golden sand and, beyond it, the turquoise-blue sea. It’s a beautiful evening, and I breathe in the cool breeze, strands of my hair whipping round my face. I may not like beinginthe water, but I sure do love looking out over it. ‘Naomi, this view. It’s… I can’t describe it.’

‘You’re meant to be a writer.’

‘That’s how good it is.’

She sounds relieved. ‘I hear Burgau is stunning. I’ve never been.’

‘I’ve only just arrived, but yeah, you could say it’s picturesque.’ I smile, leaning an arm on the balcony. ‘When you go down the hill nearer the beach, the roads become all cobbled and quaint.’ I turn my head to admire the high, sloping cliffs that frame the end of the beach. ‘Wow. Burgau is seriously spectacular. A nice place to hide out.’

‘Who’s hiding?’

‘Leo Silva.’ I force myself in from the balcony to explore the rest of the apartment. ‘He’s the subject of my article.’

‘The pro surfer you mentioned,’ she recalls.

‘Formerpro surfer,’ I correct, opening the door to the bedroom and grinning at how spacious it is with a modern ensuite bathroom. ‘He retired and disappeared.’

‘And he’s been living in Burgau ever since? Makes sense, it’s a pretty good surfing spot. That’s what it says in my notes, anyway. So you’re going to write one of your big features on him forStudio? Like you did with that skier?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I say, flopping down onto the bed and lying back to stare up at the white ceiling. ‘Not a bad gig.’

‘Sure.’ She hesitates. ‘Iris, have you thought this through?’

‘Honestly, no, not really.’ I laugh, kicking off my shoes. ‘The whole thing came about very quickly, but hey, it will be fine. You know I can research fast.’

‘Yeah, but… didn’t youimmerseyourself in the skier’s life?’ She reminds me cautiously. ‘That’s how you write these pieces so well – you don’t do these interviews by half; you throw yourself into their lives. Like with the skier, you were out on the slopes with him at the crack of dawn, watching him train. You wrote about the feeling of skiing, all that cool stuff about the exhilaration and sense of freedom you experienced as you followed him down the mountain. As a reader, I felt like I was there with you.’

‘Is this your weird way of asking if you can come join me out here?’

‘I wish.’ She pauses. ‘Actually, I’m worried about you.’

‘What?Why?’ I blurt out, bewildered.

‘Because of Mallorca.’

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